Nearly 30 new car, 20 two-wheeler launches lined up till March 2020

Rise of the millennial population, increasing disposable income and availability of innovative mobility solutions will drive the market.

Passenger vehicle (PV) and two-wheeler sales in the country have been bleak in the past few months, despite inquiries being good, due to poor consumer sentiment. To create excitement among consumers, especially during festivals, car manufacturers have lined up around 25-30 launches and two-wheeler makers have lined up another 20 between August 2019 and March 2020. The new launches include electric and hybrid vehicles.

On an average, car makers, excluding luxury ones, invest around Rs 1,500-2,000 crore to launch a new car.

Two-wheeler and PV retail sales dropped by five per cent and 4.6 per cent, respectively, in June 2019, compared to last year.

CARE Ratings says that demand might remain muted till the second quarter before it starts picking up from the third quarter due to festival and pre-buying before BS-VI implementation from April 1, 2020. Also, with higher MSPs announced, farm income is expected to be marginally higher and encourage rural spending.

To cash in on this, car makers have lined up nearly 25-30 new launches. Some of them include Maruti Suzuki Ertiga Cross and S-Presso, Hyundai New Grand i10, Tucson Facelift and Hyundai New Elite i20. Honda would be launching Honda HR-V and New City, while Tata would introduce the Buzzard and Altroz. Skoda expects to launch Karoq, and Renault to launch Renault Triber and Kwid Facelift.

Vikas Jain, national sales head, Hyundai Motor India Ltd, said that sometimes, a slowdown in the market is a cyclical phenomenon. Due to practical challenges such as volatility in fuel prices, high interest rates and increase in insurance premium, some of the buyers are deferring their purchase decision.

The long-term outlook is good considering that the penetration of PVs in India is still very low at around 20 out of 1,000 people. The rise of the young millennial population, increasing disposable income and availability of innovative mobility solutions will drive the market.

Business Standard

Have your cake and eat it too: How Tata can save JLR without selling stake

Had holding company Tata Sons Ltd. been a publicly traded firm, it could have raised equity relatively easily to help tide JLR over.

India’s Tata Group should treat the speed bump at Jaguar Land Rover as a timely memo: The $102 billion salt-to-software conglomerate can no longer put off listing its closely held parent.

UK-based Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc is burning cash on electric-vehicle technology just as the double whammy of a Chinese auto slowdown and Brexit threatens margins and sales. At average cash burn rates of 670 million pounds ($882 million) a quarter, the British carmaker may struggle to make it through another year, my colleague Anjani Trivedi wrote last month after it took an asset impairment charge of 3.1 billion pounds.

(Business Standard)

Had holding company Tata Sons Ltd. been a publicly traded firm, it could have raised equity relatively easily to help tide JLR over. Instead, Tata Motors Ltd., which acquired JLR in 2008, is exploring strategic options including a sale of a stake in the UK unit, Bloomberg News reported. Although Tata Motors says there’s “no truth to the rumors,” the bond market was a little relieved.

Investors’ concerns haven’t fully dissipated, and that shows the problem with the sprawling Tata Group’s structure. In the current scheme of things, the holding company and its 66-per cent owners — who happen to be charitable trusts — depend on payouts from software services provider Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. as well as Jaguar Land Rover to keep the empire ticking.

The insufficiency of those dividends became a sore point in a 2016 boardroom battle between patriarch Ratan Tata and Chairman Cyrus Mistry, who was abruptly ousted after less than four years. Borrowing on the strength of operating companies’ cash flows has a limit. Next year will see a record $17.5 billion of debt mature, according to bonds and loans data compiled by Bloomberg. The conglomerate must step up investment in order to generate more free cash.

Last year’s $5 billion purchase of bankrupt Bhushan Steel Ltd., which supplies metal to auto and appliance makers, is a step in that direction. The move helps group boss Natarajan Chandrasekaran cut Tata Steel Ltd.’s reliance on a less-than-rewarding construction industry.

Still, it’s Jaguar Land Rover that should worry him. JLR has avoided investing in entry-level crossovers — which account for a quarter of sales at rivals BMW AG and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz — because of its expensive focus on electric vehicles, as Deepesh Rathore, analyst at Emerging Markets Automotive Advisors, said in a Bloomberg Television interview.

Tesla launches new $45,000 version of Model 3 sedan with mid-range battery

Although Tesla has promised a base-level version of the Model 3 priced at $35,000, so far it has only produced higher-cost versions.

Tesla Inc on Thursday introduced a new $45,000 version of its Model 3 sedan on its website, launching the car as U.S. tax breaks for Tesla cars are about to decrease.

According to the website, the rear-wheel-drive model has a "mid range" battery, a range of 260 miles, 50 miles less than the long-range battery that the more expensive Model 3 is equipped with.

The new version has a delivery period of six to 10 weeks, according to the website, which would customers eligible for the current $7,500 U.S. tax credit if they take delivery by the end of the year. The tax credit for Tesla cars will drop by half on Jan. 1.

Although Tesla has promised a base-level version of the Model 3 priced at $35,000, so far it has only produced higher-cost versions starting at about $49,000.

Tesla has said that it would not manufacture the base-level version of the Model 3 this year.

Adding the mid-priced version of the Model 3 appears to be a strategic way to lure possible buyers who had been waiting for the lower-priced version.

It is not clear how many of the more than 400,000 reservations for the Model 3 are for the base models.

Business Standard